Care-Coach-Lead

The principles of great coaching are universal, whether you are coaching a sports team, coaching employees at your business, or parenting your kids.

Being a great coach requires you to be great at connecting with people, hold them to a high standard, and to be empathetic to the challenges they are uniquely facing.

No one understands this better than Danny Lehr.  Danny's coached wrestling, CrossFit, and weightlifting, all while starting multiple businesses, and being a Dad of 2 girls.

Coaching isn't just something he does from time to time, but it's baked into his identity.

In today's episode, we talk about how to translate the principles of coaching to all areas of your life to be more productive and increase your impact.

If you've had any success as a personal trainer, you've probably experienced those moments where your schedule is full, and you can't take on any more clients at those prime times.

You end up having to turn down great training opportunities, or forcing clients into inconvenient times, which usually results in the client not being happy.

In today's podcast, we discuss an overlapping PT model, which allows coaches to fit more clients during their busiest times, while allowing them to double or triple their hourly rate.

This results in the client getting their ideal training time, being surrounded by other like-minded people, without taking away from the individualization which brought them to PT in the first place.

Coaches are more powerful than they think.

Not only can we help people lose weight, gain muscle, and get in the best shape of their lives, but we can help people get out of pain and overcome injuries that aren't currently being solved by their doctors or physical therapists.

Through smart modifications, corrective exercise, and helping to manage a person's lifestyle, we can help our clients do what they love, without being held back by pain and injury.

No one knows this better than Dr. Ray Gorman, who is today's guest on the Care-Coach-Lead audio podcast.  Ray has been working with coaches and clients for over a decade to help them resolve pain and injuries.

In today's show, we discuss how coaches can transition group clients who need help to 1-on-1 training, and how to think about building a remote business to expand our reach.

After years of building a successful CrossFit gym in New Orleans, Jonathan DeJean realized that what his city needed was not another CrossFit gym.

If Krewe Fitness was going to fulfill their mission and help more people, then it would likely happen with a model that was more accessible to the average person.

As a former rower at LSU, Jonathan and his business partners decided to build a gym around the 3 Concept 2 machines; the row, the bike, and the ski.

ErgoFit was born.

In today's podcast we discuss Jonathan's journey building a successful CrossFit gym, how he grew his gym by 100 members through covid shutdowns, and the future of his new brand, ErgoFit.

One of my favorite insights from the episode is that ErgoFit will enable them to comfortably fit up to 24 clients per class in about 2000 sf, where his current barbell-centric model at Krewe Fitness only allows them to fit 15 clients per class in about 4000 sf.

That's 1 client per 83 sf as compared to 1 client per 266 sf!

Or said differently, their current Krewe Fit model requires more than triple the space to serve the same amount of clients, which is not cheap in a major city like New Orleans.

Whether you want to open a 2nd location, open a new gym concept, or maximize the square footage in your existing microgym model, this episode is for you.

Years ago, it was common to have anybody who was interested in your gym try a free class, and then hope they liked it enough to sign up.

As the micro gym industry has matured over the years, many gyms have moved to doing a no-sweat intro or consultation in order to learn more about what their clients are looking for and to potentially prescribe higher value services.

The next evolution of sales in the gym industry is happening, and the key to making it all work is a simple 7-minute discovery call.

In today's episode, Dave and Scott from PT Legends are back on the podcast to talk about how a 7-minute phone call can enable gym owners to sell high ticket packages in the realm of $4K-8K per package.  You won't want to miss this episode.

When I first started coaching CrossFit over a decade ago, I didn’t really enjoy running personal training sessions.

CrossFit in a group setting seemed like a magic pill that could solve everyone’s issues, so personal training just seemed unnecessary, overly expensive for the client, and a little boring to run.

For those first several years, I would gladly take a group class over any personal training session.

Over time, my skills evolved as a coach, and my ability to help clients in a deep and individualized way evolved with it.

Personal training became so much more enjoyable for me, and the value clients got in return was night-and-day.

When done correctly, personal training is not just a 1-on-1 version of a group fitness class.

It’s a chance to deliver individualized value to help clients overcome pain or injuries, develop complex skills and techniques, or train for a specific sport or event.  And these types of high-value solutions are almost always best delivered in a 1-on-1 environment.

In today’s episode, we discuss why some coaches may be adverse to 1-on-1 training, and why that may be a sign that it’s time for you to double down on your skills and education as a coach.

Imagine opening a gym in your twenties only to see it go out of business a couple years later.

Now imagine re-opening a gym under the same name in your thirties, and it reaching such a massive amount of success that you quickly scale to multiple locations and have franchisees knocking down your doors.

That's what happened to my good friend Craig Avera, but with his drive-thru coffee concept, Cali Coffee.

After seeing his dream coffee business fail over a decade ago, Craig spent nearly a decade growing personally and professionally through CrossFit, working at Brick Los Angeles, and competing for their teams at the CrossFit Games.

We hired him and his girlfriend Rose to coach at FitTown in early 2017, as they were working to find a location to re-open their new and improved Cali Coffee concept.

Today, Craig and Rose have 2 thriving locations in South Florida, with many more on the way.

They are incredible business owners that have mastered the art of branding, taking action, and building culture in their business. Craig joins the show today to talk about his journey in CrossFit and in business, why he was successful the 2nd time around, and what it was like training high-profile celebrity clients while working at Brick.

A few months back, we starting working with a company called PT Legends to help us create high-ticket, high-impact transformation programs at FitTown Jupiter.  

We've known for years that many of our clients needed more than just group classes, personal training, or nutrition coaching, but we struggled to create a system that could have a deep impact on the mindset, lifestyle, and habit changes necessary to see deep and lasting change.  

Dave and Scott are the owners and creators of PT Legends, and they have nearly perfected a process for creating, selling, and executing high-ticket programs.  

They are already helping many gym owners and coaches save their businesses, stop trading time for money, and create a level of impact with their clients that is renewing their love and passion for why they got in the fitness industry in the first place.  

This is the first of many episodes with Dave and Scott, where we layout the backstory behind their transformational programs, and layout the mindset changes that coaches need to embody to create lasting success in the fitness industry.  

A few years back, I got an email from a listener of the podcast, recommending that I check out a book called the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership.  That email came from Brandon Simpson, the general manager of Swamp Rabbit CrossFit in Greenville, SC, and was the start of a relationship that has provided tremendous growth for both of us. 

Brandon and I share a love of learning, curiosity, and a desire to learn what most other people would accept as "untrainable skills".  

Most people assume that things like empathy, leadership, love, and caring are things that can't be learned and trained.  You either have those traits or you don't.

But we've both experienced in ourselves and others how these traits can be learned and cultivated, just like any tangible skill can.  

In this episode, Brandon and I discuss how to be a rockstar coach and a more conscious leader.  We talk about how to find a great mentor, and how to be one for others.  

A few years ago, we almost hired a coach out of Canada to re-locate and work at FitTown Jupiter.  The coach talked really highly of his home gym, Greater Purpose Health and Fitness, and was excited by how much our core values lined up with where he was currently working.  

The owner of that gym is Matt Chenard, and he is an incredible coach, gym owner, and leader. 

What I love about Matt's approach, is that he doesn't just settle for helping people lose weight, improve their performance, and set PRs.  

Matt truly believes in a holistic approach that thrives in 5 key areas: Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Connection, and Purpose.  He challenges clients to get uncomfortable and ask difficult questions that helps them create insights they haven't experienced before.  

It's one of the reasons why Matt has challenged himself to do ice baths and post to social media every single day, despite the resistance he feels towards these activities.  

If you want to deepen your impact, conquer fear, and live a more meaningful life, this episode is for you.